life on the island of Hönö

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Monthly Archives: April 2014

Every year I contribute to the Wwppd with a pinhole photo taken on the day. This year my mind wasn’t in it to build a camera so I used my trusty wooden 4/5″ large format pinhole camera. Spent all day yesterday doing wet plates so I decided to do a pinhole wet plate picture. With the sunny weather I had an exposure time of about 5-6 minutes, yesterday when I used the Sinar camera the general exposure time was 4-6 seconds. It took some plates to get the composition right without a viewfinder but in the end I was quite happy with the result. My picture and many others from all over the world can be found at http://www.pinholeday.org!

Forgot how fast the chickens grow! Last time they where more tame but now they have a couple of real mothers looking after them(well they don’t know they where bought on the internet, do they?). Bugget is The Mother hen, she’s trying to fit all of them underneath her for warmth and constantly clucks to tell them what to do. Pidgey is also helping out but not on the same level. What’s surprising is the other hens are helping out so much. I worried that they would pick on the chickens. When Nugget and Bugget ruled and we bought the other hens a few weeks old they where pecked on like crazy. A couple of times now they’ve had the neighbouring cats trying to attack them but all the hens serve as bodyguards for the chickens and do thir best to scare the cats away. Today they have all been more brave and curious, going further and further from the henhouse.

A aaah finally it’s warm, sunny and everything is growing like mad. First time mowing the lawn of this year. Hard work! The mower didn’t start at first, I asked the neighbour and after some taking apart and putting together I figured out the problem. A few minutes later I got it started! So proud of myself I made a victory run up and down the road, with the mower. The flowers are growing so fast you can see a difference from morning till evening. First spuds are in the ground but the hens are doing their best to dig them up.

There’s been a strange buzzing of activity on the island over the past few days. On every corner a group of kids on bikes and old worn Volvos driving around stacked with Christmas trees in the trunk. A helicopter has been circling the island and even a police car (there is no police on Hönö only if they get called out from the mainland). Apparently there is a code of honour, after four am Easter eve no one is allowed to steal any trees from each other. In the morning all the kids start bringing trees out from their hideouts and stacking them on the particular bonfire that they “belong” to. There is a lot of fuel, alcohol for the participants and gas canisters and oil for the bonfire. It’s all a recipe for disaster but, touch wood, usually it goes smooth. Oh and not to forget all the fireworks that kids throw on the fire.

I asked my neighbour, who’s 95 years old this summer, about the Easter fires. How long it’s been going on. He said -For ever, at least since from when I was a kid. We used to light one at Långholmen. You had to row your boat out full with xmas trees. One year someone gave us an old rowing boat and barrels of tar from Vadbinderiet(where they tie the fishing nets). That year the fire burned until four o’clock in the morning.

Then finally last night it was time. We made our way up to Kanon berget(Cannon hill), there was a lot of shouting up on the hill and as usual we lost our way going up, they had already lit the “narr-fyren (see https://henisland.wordpress.com/2013/12/27/the-big-hunt-is-on/) so we had to make our way up a steep mountainside. A large collection of trees were stacked and tied with ropes with a plastic ice-cream ad clown as decoration. It was all very civilised, the police showed up for the first time since we started going to that fire. They had made tour around the Islands and apparently confiscated 400litre of oil at one of the other fires. They also told us more about what happened Thursday, a shipping container was transported on the ferry with trees from the mainland( this is news to me I didn’t think there was cheating going on) a rivalry gang showed up and started a big fight and wild chase after the Xmas trees. There were a lot of rumours about injuries but the police had a different story. All in all we had a great night, not counting a sprained ankle, and woke up to summer weather. 20degrees sunshine and BBQ!

We’ve had an extra family member the last few days. Looking after Kika while her owners are abroad. Kika was found in a dumpster in Spain as a puppy. They thought she was dead and that someone had just thrown her out. Lucky for her she was brought to a rescue home and shipped over to Sweden. Understandably she is very nervous but she settled in with our family pretty much straight away. Taking over the sofa and attacking my daughter with kisses and her wagging tail. We take her for walks down the beach and as soon as she’s let of the leach she’s off like a cannonball! She runs around in circles, climbes the rocks and charges through puddles. Happier dog is hard to find. Imagine what a second chance she got in life. It’s been great to try out being a dog owner and it will be very hard to return her to her owners in a few days but a very good lesson. One day we will probably get our own dog but now there are too many projects, cats, chickens… One thing is for sure the cats will not miss Kika. She only wants to play with them but they don’t speak the same language.

I had one day to prepare but luckily I’ve been through it all before. It’s been raining for about a week and then yesterday broke in to sunshine. I hoped today would be the same but the wind was just excruciating so I had the doors to the barn closed and a lot of heating lamps and radiators for the plants. Note for next year, wait a few weeks… The day did turn out to be great though! Probably around fifty people during the day. Most of them bought plants but there was some really interesting swaps to. Two apple trees, tomato plants and various indoor plants, problem is I ended up with more plants than I had. Looking for something in the basement I found a crate of spuds that had sprouted even more crazy than last year, they made a nice ornament on the wall outside in a basket that the old fishermen used to carry on to the boats.

The kids had a very successful cake sale and helped out a lot. Having a cafe in the barn was nice, giving me and idea about how it’s going to be when the whole big plan comes together some time in future. Of course the hens were very popular and the little chicks are getting more and more tame and curious. All the eggs we’d saved up for the last couple of weeks went with the first three customers!

Oh my they are just so adorable! Bugget and Pidgey have now decided to have shared custody. They both moved into the same box and the chickens don’t seem to care about which hen they crawl under or climb over. I didn’t remember that they are extremely able already at a few days old. They jump around, squeak and twitter all over the place!